Thursday, 23 June 2016

Anthony Joshua doesn't really
want to be fighting Dominic Breazeale on Saturday. Many fans aren't too
fussed either. But elite heavyweight boxing tends to be a series of
frustrations punctuated by an occasional ecstatic release.

The
Twitter timeline of Eddie Hearn shows how deep these frustrations run.
Joshua's promoter is constantly told his charge should be thrown in with
Tyson Fury or David Haye, instead of these rusting tomato cans and
bums. But Hearn understands that matchmaking in heavyweight boxing is a
devilishly delicate business, like trying to balance a couple of
elephants on a set of kitchen scales.
Handling a heavyweight
prospect is not much different to handling a racehorse. It's about
knowing when to rest them up, when to step them up and when to retire
them. And, most of all, it's about making as much money as possible.
"It frustrates me that the public don't understand what goes on behind the scenes," says the 26-year-old Joshua, who won the IBF world title
in only his 16th pro fight in April, courtesy of a brutal second-round
knockout of the previously unbeaten but horribly overmatched Charles
Martin.
"I'm interested in fighting Fury; I want to fight all the
big names now. But the people guiding my career are looking long-term.
Breazeale has had almost the same number of fights as me [he is unbeaten
in 17], he's tall, he's rangy, so it should be good preparation for
someone like Fury.
"There's no point trying to explain it to the
doubters - you are always going to be wrong. I'll make sure these big
fights happen eventually, so that I'll be giving back. And I know what
I'm doing in the meantime, that's the main thing."
Ironically, given that the IBF has announced it will strip any of its champions who choose to fight at the Olympics
- to "protect the welfare" of amateur boxers - Joshua has prepared for
the Breazeale fight by getting bashed up by Britain's amateurs in
Sheffield. It has been a rough reminder of what made him.
"Going
back to spar with the amateurs was difficult," says Joshua, who won
super-heavyweight gold at the London Olympics and has recently been
sparring Rio qualifier Joe Joyce and team-mate Frazer Clarke.
"They're
so quick for three rounds and are basically all top-end professionals
[many of the GB team fight in World Series Boxing, which is a
professional arm of 'amateur' boxing]."
Hearn chips in: "We go up
there and the GB boys are saying: 'Great, we've got some pros to bash
up!' Kevin Mitchell [the former two-time world lightweight title
challenger] said it felt like he had whiplash when he came up here."
Another
irony: when Joshua first arrived in Sheffield as an ABA champion, he
found the going so rough he seriously thought about quitting and turning
pro. Mike Tyson might have been right when he said the main reason pros
fighting at the Olympics was ridiculous was because the amateurs would
beat them.
"When I first went up there, I thought: 'What the
hell is this? These guys are trying to kill me'," says Joshua, who only
took up boxing at 18. "I was getting battered, dropped, training four
times a day. It was like a boot camp.
"At the time I was on £500 a month and still getting into trouble
[outside of the ring], so I thought about making money in other ways.
Plus, Derek Chisora was from my gym [Finchley ABC], had won the ABAs and
turned pro, so there was a formula that worked without having to do all
the extra graft.
"But one of the physios took me aside and said:
'Look, if you think people are going to respect you because you've won
an ABA title, you've got another thing coming.' That's when I started
understanding about levels. GB Boxing made me find that next level. They
took that rawness and started to polish it."
Joshua returned to
Sheffield because, from the moment he made his pro debut in 2013, he was
no longer under the radar. A prospect with 16 fights to his name would
normally be learning his craft by sparring top names. But when you're a
world champion with 16 knockouts on your record, those doors remain
closed
If all goes to plan and he beats Breazeale at London's O2 arena,
Joshua might spend his summer sparring Joyce in Rio. Joshua is heading
to Brazil as a BBC pundit, but it would still be a classy act from a man
who wants to give back.
"Joe will be in peak condition and he's
got one of the best engines I've ever seen," says Joshua. "He'll be
punching me all over the place. The choice is the Copacabana or some
dirty gym in a holding camp. But I'd love to help Joe."
As well as
Olympics future, Joshua also has an eye on Olympics past. Against
Breazeale, Joshua says he will wear an all-white gown and shorts as a
tribute to Muhammad Ali, who won gold in 1960 and passed away earlier
this month.
In Ali's 17th pro fight, he knocked out a 30-year-old former American
footballer from California called Charlie Powell. Breazeale is also 30,
also a former American footballer and also from California. Powell fell
in three, just as Ali predicted, and not many expect Breazeale to last
longer.
They built heavyweights tougher in Ali's day and the
talent ran deeper. But even 'The Greatest' had to be seasoned before the
reins were loosened.
Fury, the WBA and WBO champion who faces
Wladimir Klitschko in a rematch on 9 July, can wait until Joshua has
sharpened his tools sufficiently, and there isn't a stadium big enough
to hold a contest between the two. It might be next summer, it might be
next autumn, but that ecstatic release will happen.
"Until now
I've been knocking them out subconsciously," says Joshua. "But I want to
control a fight from start to finish, be able to say: 'No, I won't
throw now, wait and it will come.'
"I'd like to take that confidence into the ring - slip, dance, make it longer. You never know, I might even try an Ali shuffle."